Fresh-Picked Seattle

Fresh-Picked Seattle was an independent event calendar and resource website that existed from December of 2008 through June 2014. During that time, it listed thousands of local food, - and, once it incorporated little sister sites Freeattle and Seattle Natural Selection - free and nature events on its calendar.

While the stand-alone site and full calendar have been discontinued, you can still find great resources here for things to do. Check out the below posts that will can connect you with the cooking schools, community organizations and local experts that can help you pick up wild food identification skills, teach you how to temper chocolate, show you how to make dyes from mushrooms, improve your knife skills, get you bike commuting, keep you on budget with free movies and other entertainment, and a lot more.

I also am currently writing city guides for Groupon, and as those are posted (they usually cover topics like I used to cover on FPS), I'll post links here and they'll show up below.

Running Fresh-Picked changed my life. I learned new things, got to know this city, made friends, developed lifelong passions, heard people's stories, became part of a community. It was hard to give up running the site full time, but I'm happy to still have these resources here as a starting point. I encourage you to check them out for lots of great ideas for things to do that might - if you're needing it - help expand your life like it did mine.

I am about to post another "three years ago today..." post, and felt like I ought to just insert a quick "not three years ago" note just to break it up a little. I'll be posting more in-depth galleries of each of the below, but here are some highlights of the flora and fauna I met in July, including seals, raptors, chimps, a really aggressively affectionate elk, grizzlies (ok the bears were just via second-hand tales), peanut butter trees, berries, bees (of course).

In September 2012, I spoke with Portland-based forager and author Rebecca Lerner about her experiences learning about wild food and foraging. Becky is the author of the FirstWays blog and the recently released book Dandelion Hunter.